Control of the people 1917-85

- How did the Soviet Government exercise control over the media, propaganda and religion? - How did the use of the Secret Police change through the period 1917 to 1985? -How effective was the Soviet Governments use of culture and the arts

State control of mass media and propaganda

Newspapers/ Magazines

• Decree in November 1917 banned all non-socialist newspapers, early 1920’s all non-Bolshevik papers were eliminated

• Magazines targeted the hobbies of farmers, soldiers and even children

Radio

• little music mainly propaganda, gov was allowed to communicate their message through the 65% illiterate population.

Television

• by the 1950s main method the gov got their message to the population.

The cult of Stalin

• Stalin linked himself close to Lenin

• Paintings of Stalin presenting him as hero and defender of socialism

• Statues of Stalin

• Used as a method of propaganda

The cult of Khrushchev

• A cult of personality allowed him to be seen as a more important leader. Reflected his ego.

• Visits to peasants on farms good photo opportunities.

• Used radio, cinema and TV

The cult of Brezhnev

• Cult gave him the symbol of power without having to exercise it

• cult provided the appearance of leadership to the Soviet at his last 6 years when his health deteriorated

The Russian Orthodox Church

• Bolsheviks saw religion as a threat to socialist ideology

• 1918, Decree on Freedom of Conscience separated the Orthodox church from the state

• Large number of churches destroyed

• By 1923 28 bishops and more than 1,000 priests were killed

• 1929, establishment of the League of Militant Godless by the Bolsheviks as part of propaganda against religion.

• 1930 four fifths of all village churches were destroyed

Changes to religious policy under Stalin

• Campaign of religious repression, churches closed down.

• Attacks during the great purge 1936-39, 12/163 bishops were still at liberty

• German invaded 1941 there was change as the church supported the war effort, Stalin took a liberal approach

• Re-establishing/re-opening churches

Khrushchev’s anti-religious campaign

• 1958-59 launched a harsh anti-religious campaign

• Within 4 years 10,000 of the existing churches were closed

• Priests harassed by the secret police

Brezhnev’s policies toward the church

• Allowed the church to act within its defined limits

• Jews and Baptists were treated with less tolerance, prayer meetings broken up.

Influence of Islam

• Most mosques closed down

• International women’s day 1927, the campaign against the veiling of women

• Resulted in violent revolts in 1928-29 which was crushed by soviet armed forces

Results of religious policy

• 1980 survey found 25% of the population believed in god

• influence of religious structures declined

• Underground network of support developed

The role of Yagoda

• Head of secret police in 1934, placed great emphasis on the expansion of the Gulag

• Achievement of the White Sea Canal. used 180,000 labourers from the Gulag, cost of 10,000 lives.

• 1936, accused of incompetence in safeguarding Kirov, and not pursuing the opposition with enough enthusiasm

• Removed and stalin had him shot in 1938

The role of Yezhov

• Nicknamed the ‘Bloody dwarf’, NKVD had the most excessive phase of the purges

• Process of arrest, trial and imprisonment made faster. September 1937 processed 231 prisoners each day

• July 1937 orders requiring camps to meet quotas for the execution of prisoners

• Surveillance of general public increased under the NKVD

The role of Beria

• Thought that indiscriminate arrests were inefficient and a waste of manpower

• Surveillance continued

• Wanted to make the Gulag a profitable part of the economy, early 1950s it was a major contributor to the economy

KGB

• The comitee for state security established in 1954, organised and controlled by the secret police

• Main tasks to deal with internal security, intelligence gathering both at home and abroad.

Dissidents

Main target of the police under the KGB run by Andropov 1967. Applied to those who criticised the Soviet state or system and included a diverse range of people.

Intellectuals dissidents

High status in society had encouraged them to develop independent ways of thinking.

Political dissidents

People who tried to hold the government to the account of its own laws.

Nationalists

Vocal dissidents, groups of Ukrainians, Latvians, Lithuanians and georgians called for greater status of their own cultures and independence from the USSR.

Religious dissidents and the refuseniks

• Baptists and Catholics who received restrictions of their worship

• Refuseniks, soviet Jews who had been denied their wish to emigrate to Israel.

Actions taken against Dissidents

• Secret police would conduct surveillance and harassment of suspected dissidents. Searched houses and arrests

• Intellectuals were often threatened with expulsion from their professional environment

• Use of psychiatric hospitals

• Internal exile

Impact of the dissidents

• Generalised bad publicity for the soviet, the Helsinki Accords signed in 1975

• Dissidents often acted as individuals not as a group

• End of 1970s Andropov succeeded in keeping the dissidents as individuals

Prolekult

• Bogdanov argued that the state needed to use new technology to create its own ‘Proletarian Culture’

• New group of proletarian artists assembled, to serve a social and political purpose.

Avant garde

• New and experimental ideals and methods in art, music or literature.

• Modernism was coupled with futurism

• Early 1920s peasants literacy rates were low, therefore the avant garde was used by the Bolsheviks to expose them to education

• Didn’t work as it was too complicated to understand

The new soviet man

An ideal socialist who thinks and acts according to socialist values

Cultural Revolution

• Full scale assault on traditional writers and artists to be replaced by loyal socialist artists

• Komsomol were encouraged to attack bourgeois elements.

• Russian Association of Proletarian Writers

Socialist Realism

• 1932 RAPP closed down and bringing Union of Soviet Writers, ending the cultural revolution

•  Socialist realism being art that described the presented idealised images of life under socialism to inspire the population to its achievements 

Art under socialist realism

• Abstract art rejected, present ideal images of life under the five year plans through workers/peasants working for socialism

• Statues of Stalin

Literature and Film under Socialist realism

• Standard plot of novels in the 1930s being a hero from the people who is guided by the party to greater things

• Low price of books easy to access

• Achievements of the gov were presented in film

Music and architecture under socialist realism

• Gov favoured military songs compared to Jazz

• Ban of saxophone in the 1940

• ‘wedding cake’ architecture made of classical lines, Moscow Uni rebuilt after 1945 and the Moscow metro system

What was non-conformity of the changes to arts and culture?

• Writers began to explore new themes such as spiritual concerns

• ‘Literature of conscience’ didn’t focus on the idealised life socialist realism portrayed ‘lowbrow literature’ also criticised the soviet system

• Western influences become apparent especially with the youth